Recently I overheard a man say at a yoga class, “Yeah, well, you get two women together and it’s like bitch central.” I could have told him he only needed one, in fact, and that would be me, but it also made me realize how much people diminish and poo-poo the real power and strength of female friendship, especially between women, which is either supposed to descend into some kind of male lesbian love ...

This weekend, it seemed all of my lady friends on Facebook were linking to this piece by Emily Rapp. It’s a lovingly-rendered tribute to the older mentors who’ve shaped her and the current friends who’ve saved ...

This is guest post is by Doreen Bloch, a young entrepreneur and author. Doreen is the author of the forthcoming book, The Coolest Startups in America, and the CEO and Founder of Poshly Inc. She is a member of the Young Entrepreneur Council and is a regular contributor to Under30CEO.

When I asked Doreen to explain what impelled her to write this post (originally posted on her blog), she told me that one of her guy friends pseudonymously tweets comedy and sarcasm, and that in addition to being a popular tweeter, he’s a leader in his offline community. “His tweets are fantastic, but every now and then, he makes sexist ...

This is guest post is by Doreen Bloch, a young entrepreneur and author. Doreen is the author of the forthcoming book, The Coolest Startups in America, and the CEO and Founder of

I know I have done something right in my life because I get to write headlines like the one above. I know there is something wrong with the world, because that headline is based on an actual study that suggests that when women are too buddy buddy with their beau’s bros, he can’t get it up. Her platonic transgressions ruin their sex life!

The subjects were men from 57 to 85, ages when men’s social lives contract, male identity is challenged and erectile dysfunction often sets in. When a partner was closer to a man’s friends than he was, his sex life suffered, say the authors and sociologists, Benjamin Cornwell of Cornell and Edward Laumann of the University ...

I know I have done something right in my life because I get to write headlines like the one above. I know there is something wrong with the world, because that headline is based on an actual ...

Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection by developmental psychologist Niobe Way is a must-read for anyone concerned with the so-called “boy crisis,” anyone who is raising a boy in the U.S., and anyone who doubts that feminism can—and should—improve the lives of boys and men.

In this richly-researched book, based on in-depth, one-on-one interviews with teenage boys in the U.S. as they progress through high school, Way debunks the cultural myth that boys don’t have, need, or desire close friendships. By attempting to truly listen—through the distracting noise of our own assumptions and expectations—to what boys themselves are actually saying, she paints a reality that is both more heartbreaking and more hopeful than the myth. ...

Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection by developmental psychologist Niobe Way is a must-read for anyone concerned with the so-called “boy crisis,” anyone who is raising a boy in the U.S., ...

It’s been far too long since we’ve discussed sex in the Wednesday Weigh-In. Over the Good Men Project, Hugo Schwyzer challenges the conventional wisdom that you can’t be friends with someone to whom you’re sexually attracted.

In part, he blames the assumption that desire makes platonic friendship impossible on the myth of uncontrollable male desire: “One of our great myths about men is that lust invariably cancels out empathy.” He also notes that many of us–men and women–are taught to “mythologize sexual desire” and “sexualize emotional intimacy.”

Those last two points really ring true for me. As someone who has been attracted to many friends and has often acted on that–to different degrees, with varying levels of damaging fallout, and conflicted ...

It’s been far too long since we’ve discussed sex in the Wednesday Weigh-In. Over the Good Men Project, Hugo Schwyzer challenges the conventional wisdom that you can’t be friends with someone to whom you’re sexually attracted.

I had the great pleasure of hearing Philly-based painter and animator, Jennifer Levonian, speak at the Santa Fe Art Institute when I was home visiting my parents a couple of weeks ago. She started out primarily doing still watercolors, but took an animation class on a whim while in art school and fell in love with the medium.

In this amazing animation, “Her Slip is Showing,” Levonian captures what I think far too many of us feel–as if the wedding industry kidnaps our otherwise amazing friends’ brains for a short period of time leading up to their ceremonies. Take a look:

I had the great pleasure of hearing Philly-based painter and animator, Jennifer Levonian, speak at the Santa Fe Art Institute when I was home visiting my parents a couple of weeks ago. She started out ...